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What can we do in this period of historic, global turbulence? Mainstream narratives have no plausible account of how to stop exacerbating the multiple, overlapping challenges; much less begin to address them meaningfully. The only thing everyone agrees is innovation will be needed. But what is innovation? Usually, it is understood as new technologies that will 'solve' specific 'problems'--and, it is hoped, return life to a 'business as usual' of progress in individual freedom and wealth. But innovation is a thoroughly social process with profound implications for the arrangement of power in a society, hence shaping the emergence of new social systems. Exploring evidence from the key arenas of low-carbon innovation, including in the pivotal location of a rising China, this book describes the global systemic crisis of a neoliberal world order and the embryonic emergence of an alternative global power regime of a 'liberalism 2.0'. This augurs both a web 2.0-based revitalization of the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century and new Dickensian inequalities and injustices. Against hopes that the present is a 'revolutionary' moment, therefore, political engagement with this emerging power regime is thus presented as the most productive strategy for a progressive twenty-first century politics.

Dramatic and controversial changes in the funding of science over the past two decades have stimulated a huge literature trying to set out an ""economics of science"". Whether broadly in favour or against these changes, the vast majority of these frameworks employ ahistorical analyses that cannot conceptualise, let alone address, the questions of ""why have these changes occurred?"" and ""why now?"" This book argues that the fundamental underlying problem in all cases is the ontological shallowness of these theories, which can only be remedied by attention to ontological presuppositions. Accor

Dramatic and controversial changes in the funding of science over the past two decades have stimulated a huge literature trying to set out an ""economics of science"". Whether broadly in favour or against these changes, the vast majority of these frameworks employ ahistorical analyses that cannot conceptualise, let alone address, the questions of ""why have these changes occurred?"" and ""why now?"" This book argues that the fundamental underlying problem in all cases is the ontological shallowness of these theories, which can only be remedied by attention to ontological presuppositions. Accor

Dramatic and controversial changes in the funding of science over the past two decades, towards its increasing commercialization, have stimulated a huge literature trying to set out an "economics of science". Whether broadly in favour or against these changes, the vast majority of these frameworks employ ahistorical analyses that cannot conceptualise, let alone address, the questions of "why have these changes occurred?" and "why now?" Nor, therefore, can they offer much insight into the crucial question of future trends. Given the growing importance of science an

The imperative of urgent global just transition presents a grievous challenge. Current forms of economic growth are fundamental drivers of planetary ecological destruction. Yet economic growth remains indispensable, if only to underpin the profound socio-technical transition needed for an alternative, sustainable economy. The chapter explores the cultural political economy of research and innovation (CPERI) as a promising perspective for thinking through and going beyond this growth paradox. Having introduced CPERI, the chapter illustrates its advantages with a key, but much-neglected, concrete example of the growth paradox, namely the contribution of a rising China to tackling climate emergency, as site of both significant innovation and massive, resource-intensive economic growth. Comparison is also drawn with two similar perspectives, namely degrowth and responsible stagnation. A strategic approach, like CPERI, is needed to open up the prevailing definition of the 'growth' to which society is currently committed, and with major transformations still ahead.

Much discourse on low-carbon transition envisages progressive social change towards environmentally sustainable and more equitable societies. Yet much of this literature pays inadequate attention to the key question of (productive, relational) power. How do energy infrastructures and socio-technical systems interact with, construct, enable and constrain political regimes, and vice versa? Conceiving low-carbon energy transitions through a power lens, the paper explores a case study of huge, but overlooked, significance: the paradox of the 'phenomenal' resurgence of coal in an era of low-carbon innovation. Through exposition of the strong connections between coal-based socio-technical systems and a political regime of classical liberalism, illustrated in two eras, we trace an emerging constellation of energy and political regimes connecting 'clean coal' with a 'liberalism 2.0' centred on a rising China. This affords a critique of the low-carbon society emergent from these developments – a society more reminiscent of coal's previous Dickensian heyday than the progressive visions of much 'low-carbon transition' literature.

A mobility low-carbon transition is a key issue both socially and for mobilities research. The multi-level perspective (MLP) is justifiably a leading approach in such research, with important connections to high-profile socio-technical systemic analyses within the mobilities paradigm. The paper explores the key contributions that a Foucauldian-inspired cultural political economy (CPE) offers, going beyond central problems with the MLP, specifically regarding: a productive concept of power that affords analysis of the qualitatively novel and dynamic process of transition; and the incorporation of the exogenous 'landscape' into the analysis. This move thus resonates with growing calls for attention to power dynamics in mobilities research and a 'structural' turn. In making this case, we deploy the key case study of contemporary efforts towards mobility transition in China. This not only sets out more starkly the importance of MLP's gaps but also provides an empirical case to illustrate, albeit in the form of informed speculation, possible routes to low-carbon urban mobility transition and the inseparability from broader qualitative power transitions at multiple scales, including the global.

Current efforts at 'low-carbon transition' are marked by a striking paradox: the 'phenomenal' and 'historically incredible' resurgence of coal. Exploration of the source of this conundrum opens up an analysis of current trends regarding low-carbon energy transitions in terms of the forging and emergence of 'cosmopolitan climate risk communities'. Such an analysis is a case study in a broader shift to a methodologically cosmopolitan social science that involves empirical examination of processes of cosmopolitization and associated social, and not just technological, challenges of low-carbon transition. This leads to exposition of an emerging constellation of energy and political regimes connecting 'clean coal' with a 'liberalism 2.0' centred on a rising China. The low-carbon society emergent from these developments, however, is shown to be marked with intra-national inequality, violence, absurdity and a haunted schizophrenia more reminiscent of coal's previous Dickensian heyday than the progressive and normatively cosmopolitan visions of much 'low-carbon transition' literature. The implications and possible emerging configurations of such a 'clean coal'-based liberalism 2.0 are explored with particular reference to the changing natures and social definitions of techno-nationalism and cosmopolitan innovation. ; Les efforts actuels en direction d'une " transition vers la sobriété en carbone " sont caractérisés par un paradoxe saisissant : la résurgence " phénoménale " et " historiquement incroyable " du charbon. L'exploration des sources de cette enigme conduit à analyser les tendances actuelles de la transition vers une énergie sobre en carbone en termes de création et d'émergence de " communautés cosmopolitiques de risque climatique ". Une telle analyse constitue une étude de cas dans le cadre d'un mouvement plus large vers une science sociale méthodologiquement cosmopolitique qui implique l'examen empirique des processus de cosmopolitanisation et les enjeux sociaux - et pas seulement technologiques - inhérents à ...

The present is a moment of crisis and transition, both generally and specifically in "knowledge" and its institutions. Acknowledging this elicits the key questions: where are we? Where are we headed? What, if anything, can be done about this? And what can the "economics of science" contribute to this? This paper assumes a "cultural political economy of research & innovation" (CPERI) perspective to explore the current upheaval and transition in the system of academic knowledge production, at the confluence of accelerating commercialisation and the seemingly opposing movement of "open science." This perspective affords a characterisation of the core of the current crises as a crisis of moral economy; an issue to which a political economy of epistemic authority is in turn crucial. A "remoralizing" of knowledge production is thus a matter of key systemic importance, though it is important to understand such developments in power-strategic, and not explicitly moral, terms. Much of the current moves towards "open science" and "massively open online courses" (MOOCs) can also then be seen as self-defeating developments that simply exacerbate the crisis of a viable "economy of science" and in no sense its solution. Their lasting significance, however, is more likely to lie precisely in their effects on the construction of a new moral economy of knowledge production.

Current efforts at 'low-carbon transition' are marked by a striking paradox: the 'phenomenal' and 'historically incredible' resurgence of coal. Exploration of the source of this conundrum opens up an analysis of current trends regarding low-carbon energy transitions in terms of the forging and emergence of 'cosmopolitan climate risk communities'. Such an analysis is a case study in a broader shift to a methodologically cosmopolitan social science that involves empirical examination of processes of cosmopolitization and associated social, and not just technological, challenges of low-carbon transition. This leads to exposition of an emerging constellation of energy and political regimes connecting 'clean coal' with a 'liberalism 2.0' centred on a rising China. The low-carbon society emergent from these developments, however, is shown to be marked with intra-national inequality, violence, absurdity and a haunted schizophrenia more reminiscent of coal's previous Dickensian heyday than the progressive and normatively cosmopolitan visions of much 'low-carbon transition' literature. The implications and possible emerging configurations of such a 'clean coal'-based liberalism 2.0 are explored with particular reference to the changing natures and social definitions of techno-nationalism and cosmopolitan innovation. ; Les efforts actuels en direction d'une " transition vers la sobriété en carbone " sont caractérisés par un paradoxe saisissant : la résurgence " phénoménale " et " historiquement incroyable " du charbon. L'exploration des sources de cette enigme conduit à analyser les tendances actuelles de la transition vers une énergie sobre en carbone en termes de création et d'émergence de " communautés cosmopolitiques de risque climatique ". Une telle analyse constitue une étude de cas dans le cadre d'un mouvement plus large vers une science sociale méthodologiquement cosmopolitique qui implique l'examen empirique des processus de cosmopolitanisation et les enjeux sociaux - et pas seulement technologiques - inhérents à ...

Current efforts at 'low-carbon transition' are marked by a striking paradox: the 'phenomenal' and 'historically incredible' resurgence of coal. Exploration of the source of this conundrum opens up an analysis of current trends regarding low-carbon energy transitions in terms of the forging and emergence of 'cosmopolitan climate risk communities'. Such an analysis is a case study in a broader shift to a methodologically cosmopolitan social science that involves empirical examination of processes of cosmopolitization and associated social, and not just technological, challenges of low-carbon transition. This leads to exposition of an emerging constellation of energy and political regimes connecting 'clean coal' with a 'liberalism 2.0' centred on a rising China. The low-carbon society emergent from these developments, however, is shown to be marked with intra-national inequality, violence, absurdity and a haunted schizophrenia more reminiscent of coal's previous Dickensian heyday than the progressive and normatively cosmopolitan visions of much 'low-carbon transition' literature. The implications and possible emerging configurations of such a 'clean coal'-based liberalism 2.0 are explored with particular reference to the changing natures and social definitions of techno-nationalism and cosmopolitan innovation. ; Les efforts actuels en direction d'une " transition vers la sobriété en carbone " sont caractérisés par un paradoxe saisissant : la résurgence " phénoménale " et " historiquement incroyable " du charbon. L'exploration des sources de cette enigme conduit à analyser les tendances actuelles de la transition vers une énergie sobre en carbone en termes de création et d'émergence de " communautés cosmopolitiques de risque climatique ". Une telle analyse constitue une étude de cas dans le cadre d'un mouvement plus large vers une science sociale méthodologiquement cosmopolitique qui implique l'examen empirique des processus de cosmopolitanisation et les enjeux sociaux - et pas seulement technologiques - inhérents à ...